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Saturday, 14 February 2009

"Arcobelano" means "rainbow" in Italian. The restaurant itself is set in an old house. There's plenty of parking out front. The internal decor is quite nice - certainly "a warm, comfortable and lovely atmosphere" (as described by their website) to have a meal. As we arrived, we were warmly greeted by two waiters who opened the doors for us - very nice!

This is what we had:

Ceasar Salad - This was a lovely and refreshing Ceasar Salad with roman lettuce, egg, crutons and interestingly, virgin olive oil dressing. The dressing was light, but tasted great.

Spaghetti Arcobaleno Special - Mushroom, smoked ham, parmesan cheese with tomato sauce (cream sauce also avaiable). Nice pasta, would have been even better if it was just a little less salty.

Margherita with Anchovies Pizza - Yes, we do like our anchovies! Other ingredients were black olives and mozzarella cheese. It was very nice. The pizza base was very good - quite light and crispy (on the outside). Not oily.

And for dessert....

Tiramisu - it was very good - light, fluffy and creamy. Not too sweet. Nice way to finish the meal.

Other dishes we had:

Garlic Bread - It wasn't the best I've had - but passable.

Honey and Ginger Homemade Ice Cream - quite nice! There are lots of other interesting flavours (and traditional ones like chocolate and strawberry to try).

What I liked:

The food - very good and authentic Italian food.

Good value, reasonable prices for Western food

Friendly and warm atmosphere.

Quite efficient service, attentive staff & it was quite busy when we went (Valentine's Day).

They gave us extra parmesan cheese & pepper grinder without being asked (not always the case in Italian Restaurants in Chiang Mai).

Extensive menu with vegetarian meals

What could be improved:

The external decor. The restaurant (according to the waiter) has only been in the present location for 3 years. Although the inside of the restaurant is quite nice, it wouldn't hurt to have a fresh coat of paint on the outside. Eventhough currently, there is no external dining, I think would be very nice to have a nice garden and fairy lights. Looks a bit messy outside at the moment.

The bathrooms are very old and not that clean (or at least, didn't look clean). The tiles are very worn out and the toilet doors could use a fresh coat of paint - better yet, replaced. Good lighting would be nice too. OK, it wasn't THAT bad, but this was still quite a shame. We were actually enjoying the food quite a bit, and this spoilt the experience a little.